How Reactivity Versus Proactivity Negatively Impacts Productivity (or Lack Thereof)

Text messages, never-ending emails, and slack messages, oh my!

This is the world we live in today. Many professionals spend most of their hours responding to people. While it’s important to be responsive, we also need to consider what we are sacrificing in order to do so.

Houston...We Have a Real Communication Problem

I am currently reading Cal Newport’s latest book: A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload. Newport provides statistical research showing that our need to be ultra-responsive is affecting our ability to think deeply and work for long periods of time on important projects.

An engineering report that an engineer used to be able to sit down and complete in one focused day, might take that same engineer one week in today’s world, because of the many digital interruptions they must deal with. These distractions might come in the way of emails, instant messages, or even social media posts or streams.

Not only might it take someone longer to complete a task, but the quality of the work can also be significantly lower if their focus isn’t as powerful as it used to be.

The Cost of Distracted Work

Not only might this distracted work model cause the quality of our work to decrease, but Newport claims that it is making people unhappy. In fact, he has an entire chapter dedicated to this entitled, Email is Making Us Miserable. Here is an excerpt from the chapter:

“Given these stakes, it’s all the more surprising that we spend so little time trying to understand the source of this discontent. Many in the business community tend to dismiss the psychological toll from email as an incidental side effect caused by bad in-box habits or a weak constitution. I’ve come to believe, however, that much deeper forces are at play in generating our mismatch with this tool, including some that get at the very core of what drives us as humans.”

What he is saying is that by feeling like we constantly have to respond or keep up with these digital messages, coupled with the constant switching back and forth, it causes us to feel extremely tired and unhappy. This is a steep price to pay to climb the corporate ladder or build a business.

So, What’s the Solution?

Okay, so maybe recognizing that we have a problem with regard to our digital use isn’t rocket science. I think a lot of people know they have a problem, but they have accepted it as the only way to live and work in today’s world.

Newport suggests a model where we still utilize these communication tools, however we do so in a more focused and scheduled way, where we are proactive. We schedule time for deep work AND we schedule time for checking these inboxes or messages. He also feels that there are ways we can eliminate email communications for certain issues altogether. At first, this sounds completely crazy and just not feasible, but when you start to think through it, it’s actually not hard to do. One perspective Newport shares is that you have to think about the people on the other end of your communications. Do they really care if you get back to them immediately versus 2 or 3 hours later? Most likely not, because they are drowning in their own pool of digital communications and they will find others to answer if you don’t respond immediately.

So, I challenge you to make an effort to work more proactively in the coming days. Open your email, instant messaging system and social media channels at specific times each day and reserve 90 minute blocks for deep work on your calendar. At first, it will feel very uncomfortable, and very wrong, but if you can stick with it for a week or two, you’ll start thinking, “What was I doing working in such a reactive manner?”

The Benefits You (and Your Clients) Will Reap

If you can work in a more proactive way, there are countless benefits that you can realize including higher quality work output, higher quantity work output, more energy (from less brain switching), and much more focus.

If all those benefits aren’t tempting enough, there is one other important benefit that you will likely realize: you will be happier, and that’s priceless.

I would appreciate your thoughts on this way of working in the comments below. Have you tried to implement work habits to help you be more proactive? Did they work?  

To your success,

Anthony